


where women glow and men plunder

by rohkeutta



Series: a pocketful of mumbles [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Australia, Bad Puns, Humor, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Sexual Content, Snakes, Swearing, Twink Tank, Wacky Australian Nature, do not copy to another site, general horniness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 16:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19815688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: Australia is very sunny.So sunny, in fact, that Steve’s ghostly complexion gives up and promptly gets sunburnt in the three minutes it takes for him to get out of the cab, grab his luggage, and walk up the stairs to the porch of their Airbnb. Sam mercilessly chortles at his red face and immediate freckles, and at the wide-brimmed sunhat he pulls out of his backpack as soon as they get inside.“Where’s your Polaroid camera and bullet journal, Bethany,” Sam croons between fits of laughter. “Did you leave it in Tuscaloosa when you went on a holiday?”





	where women glow and men plunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [layersofsilence](https://archiveofourown.org/users/layersofsilence/gifts).



> I'm having two big dates next week - leaving my job of 6yrs, and my birthday which is just a nice thing, not any significant number achieved - and to celebrate both, I booked flights to Australia for September, and now I'm celebrating them by posting one last fic from this office. I started this last winter after binging through the whole season of Instant Hotel in one day, and finally got around finishing it. Title is from Down Under by Men At Work because I'm nothing but a walking cliché.
> 
> Big kiss to my Brisbane expert Layers, to my test readers Frosty and Meg, and to Gerry for a swift and thorough beta! Thanks also to all who yelled at me or gave me Australia-related advice for this fic on Twitter, I appreciate it hugely! 
> 
> The snake is a carpet python, which is harmless but a big hefty bastard. No actual snakes (or Australians, except maybe by my jokes) were harmed while writing this.
> 
> That said, I want to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of country throughout Australia and recognize their continuing connection to land, waters and culture, and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

Australia is very sunny.

So sunny, in fact, that Steve’s ghostly complexion gives up and promptly gets sunburnt in the three minutes it takes for him to get out of the cab, grab his luggage, and walk up the stairs to the porch of their Airbnb. Sam mercilessly chortles at his red face and immediate freckles, and at the wide-brimmed sunhat he pulls out of his backpack as soon as they get inside.

“Where’s your Polaroid camera and bullet journal, Bethany,” Sam croons between fits of laughter. “Did you leave it in Tuscaloosa when you went on a holiday?”

Sam is _so judgy_ and also wrong: Steve looks positively _adorable_ in the sunhat. He had asked his whole office and gotten a solid 100% approval, possibly because those who wanted to say he looked ridiculous were terrified into silence by his 6’2” by 250 pounds of bouldering muscle and general worksona, which means aggressive niceness and painful genuinity that’s at least 25% fake, not that the office people know it. 

“Oh no,” Steve says, smiling widely as he slaps aftersun on his glowing face. At least he was prepared for this exact outcome. “I was hoping you would come stationery shopping with me. You can participate in my new Muji Haul video.”

“Fuck you,” says Sam, but it’s a little half-hearted, mostly because Steve knows Sam genuinely heart-nuts over cute stationery. Who doesn’t, really, except some monsters who have no eye for adorable.

“Welcome back to this channel, influencers,” Nat says, pinching them both in the insides of their forearms. “If you don’t pay attention, you’re on dish duty for the whole trip.”

Nat's one to talk, though, since it’s because of her own influencer status that they even are in Australia, not to mention Brisbane. She has an insanely popular travel blog and instagram account called @kickingupnuts where she does fun stuff, looks effortlessly stunning, and spars with locals around the world thanks to her previous career as a professional MMA fighter. Many of their trips as a group have been built around her work assignments, and she and Sam even have the best kind of friends with benefits situation - Sam’s a freelance photographer, so he gets traction and Nat gets nice photos.

Steve and Clint are on the ride mostly to get free food, but that’s fine.

Amazingly, Sam gets his own face burnt during the ten minutes it takes for the owner to show them around the yard and give instructions about the pool. As far as Steve knows, Sam hasn’t gotten a sunburn since he was a kid, but clearly Australia is a glorious, godless country perfectly designed to take smug bastards down a peg. 

Steve doesn’t even pretend to hide his schadenfreude as Sam tries to steal his aftersun from the kitchen counter and hisses, “I’ll see you in hell,” behind the owner’s back when Steve slaps his hand away. Sam can get his own damn aloe for laughing at Steve’s hat.

The house is lovely, a 1920s Queenslander in the Brisbane suburbs, with a surprisingly big pool and a patio area that's perfect for sundown barbeque and doing some Australian wine tasting by the bottle. There's enough space for all of them to get their own rooms which is a blessing since Clint snores like a concussed horse, and Nat tells ghost stories in her sleep. Maybe this time Steve doesn't have to hear a slumber-garbled tale about Robert the Living Doll in the middle of the night. He hadn't slept properly for three weeks after their last pal-iday. 

The owner’s name is Jesse, a tanned thirty-something guy whose grandparents left him the house but who himself lives down on the Gold Coast. He has an almost cartoonishly strong accent: it’s all “in me jocks” and “mate”s and “that rat bastard”s, and Steve, Sam, Natasha and Clint are all listening with almost morbid fascination, understanding maybe 75% at the best. “I'm gunna be out of town for the rest of the week,” Jesse says as he shows them where the linen closet is. “Work thing. But if you have a problem, me mate James is gunna be around, his number’s on the fridge. He’s a good bloke, bit of a peacock.”

“Your friend James, number on the fridge, okay,” Sam says, a little faintly. “Jesse and James. Sure.”

“Yeah nah, like Pokemon,” Jesse agrees cheerfully. “He’s a mad cunt, I love him.”

***

Brisbane is fun - there isn't that much to do in the city itself, but Natasha has somehow mastered driving on the wrong side of the road and takes them on day trips: to the mountains and the beach, even to the enormous zoo owned by Steve Irwin’s family. Steve wears his sunhat and two layers of clothing, because he's still peeling and itchy after making the mistake of taking his shirt off at the beach. 

Clint tries to climb into the koala enclosure, enthralled by the furry little creatures that look like a child drew a fuzzy bear-owl hybrid and gave it a black hole for a nose. Sam holds him by the back of his aloha shirt, looking long-suffering, but the stern set of his mouth is ruined by the crocodile-shaped straw sticking out from it. 

“They’re so cute,” Clint says miserably when he’s back on the right side of the fence. It might be a good idea to get him a plushie from the gift shop.

“They have leprosy,” Natasha says, taking a long slurp from her drink. The reusable cup is shaped like a platypus and more disturbing than Steve would have ever imagined. Sam had wisely asked her to let Steve hold it while they did the IG photography song and dance, although Steve is half-convinced that Visit Australia or whoever Nat’s client is this time might actually find it an accurate representation of the country.

“That's armadillos,” Sam corrects. “Koalas have lethal cuteness. One look, bam, you're down quicker than Steve when you say ‘naptime’.”

“Koalas have chlamydia,” Steve says as he digs through his backpack for more sunscreen. “And naps are good for your soul.”

None of them can find a good counter-argument to that.

***

There’s a snake in the pool.

Steve spends approximately seven minutes just ogling behind the glass fence separating the yard and the pool area before he even thinks about calling someone about it. The snake is enormous, easily at least 6 feet long and about as thick as his forearm, half of it curled on the side of the pool, half chilling in the water.

 _Well,_ Steve thinks, only a tad hysterically, _that sure gives a new meaning to a pool noodle._

“Hey, asshole,” he calls cautiously. “You wanna get out? I gotta swim.”

The snake doesn’t budge. 

“Fuck off,” Steve says and automatically goes for the rake leaning against the fence, but stops himself before actually being a fucking dumbass and poking something potentially venomous with a stick. His mama would be proud of his self-discipline.

When the snake doesn't show any signs of leaving in a few more minutes, Steve grudgingly goes inside to retrieve his phone and the post-it with James’s number. Clint and Sam are out shooting some city photography combined with a grocery run, and Nat is somewhere doing her influencer thing, throwing down Ozzies of a local amateur MMA group. 

Steve has no idea how Nat’s work actually, well, works - in some places she has a very strict schedule and a list of places to see and experiences to _experience_ in a totally not pre-arranged way, and some clients let her sleep where she wants and do whatever as long as she posts photos and writes nice reviews. He has no idea what her income level is like, and probably happier without knowing.

In any case, Steve very much would like to go for a swim because he can and it’s cloudy for once, but there's nobody to help him with the damn snake except the mythical James of the Jesse-and-James combo. So he begrudgingly accepts his role as Meowth, punches in the number and waits as the line rings a few times before connecting. 

“H’lo?”

“Uh hey,” Steve says in his extremely smooth way. “I'm Steve, we’re staying in Jesse’s Airbnb? The Romanova party?”

“Ah, yeah. What's up?” James has a nice voice: melodic and a little hoarse. He must be handsome; people with voices like that are always attractive by default. 

“There’s, uh, there’s a snake in the pool? And I don’t really know how to get it out?”

James groans, and that definitely doesn’t go straight to Steve’s dick. “Typical. Sit tight, I’ll be there in a few.”

“Thank you!” Steve chirps politely before the call disconnects without even a goodbye. These Australians really need to work on their phone etiquette.

Not ten minutes later, there’s the clatter of skateboard wheels against pavement, and then the most beautiful man Steve has ever seen rolls onto the driveway, like some absurdly stunning Australian reincarnation of Napoleon riding on a longboard to conquer Steve’s Bavarian body. 

Steve’s brain is used to pairing a longboard with jeans, too much plaid and a backwards snapback, but James looks nothing like the brave New Yorkers back home whizzing around Brooklyn, dodging cars and litter. Instead, he’s the exact type of fashionable that should never look anything but ridiculous, especially on a longboard, with his barely-tamed dark hair coiffed back from his forehead. He’s wearing a muted, stylish dress shirt with short sleeves and a hibiscus pattern, tucked into high-waisted black shorts that accentuate his narrow little wasp waist, paired with surprisingly dainty leather sandals that look incredibly impractical for longboarding. 

Steve would be mad that James is somehow making that outfit work, if he weren’t too busy staring at the tanned arms and long, skinny legs and extremely well-formed facial structure on display.

“G’day,” James says as he hops off the board and comes closer. He’s smiling, but Steve can’t see his eyes behind the sunglasses, and then he opens his mouth and garbles out something that vaguely resembles English but doesn’t make any sense. 

Steve’s heart sinks. Napoleon Babeaparte is talking to him, and he doesn’t _understand a single word._

 _There is no god in Australia,_ he thinks, wildly. _If there were, he wouldn’t be this cruel._

“Oh I’m kidding,” James says as he takes in whatever expression of pure bewildered horror is on Steve’s face. “I’m from New York, I can articulate in a way that makes sense to Americans.” 

“Thank fuck,” Steve breathes out, his heart stuttering with relief. “I thought I was getting a stroke.”

James laughs, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair. He’s even more devastating without them, his eyes grey and crinkling with laughter, and _oh no._ Steve is certain that he’s going through his whole sexual awakening all over again, combined with an intense religious experience. He’s never gonna be able to look at high-waisted shorts and longboards without getting a boner, now, that’s for sure.

“I’m Steve,” Steve manages, holding out his hand for a shake. James takes it, giving Steve a very obvious once-over from the sunhat to his flip-flops, eyes lingering at the strip of skin between the low waistband of Steve’s swim shorts and the cropped tank top with a cactus pattern.

“James,” he says, mouth tipping up into another blinding smile. He’s got to be about five inches shorter than Steve, and Steve is shamefully into the way James has to tilt his head back a little to catch his eye, drawing Steve’s eyes down to his adorable dimpled chin and long neck, dotted with freckles. “Pleased to meet you.”

Oh Steve is pleased, all right. He would like to be even _more_ pleased in James’s company after they deal with the snake, if possible. There is already a painfully vivid imaginary video playing on loop in his head where he lifts James on the patio table and slowly unbuttons the hibiscus shirt to see if James’s figure is as nice as the clothing suggests, while James spreads his legs and drags one sandal-covered foot up the back of Steve’s thigh like a slutty knock-off Hercules porn character. 

There’s something eerily akin to a saxophone version of Zero to Hero playing in the background.

“New York, huh?” Steve says to distract himself from the imminent awkward boner situation about to happen in his swim shorts.

James laughs again, finally letting go of Steve’s hand. “Yeah. I met Jesse when he was an exchange student in my high school in Indiana, and he asked me to visit next year. Fell in love with the country, it’s so… Well, Australia. What a mad cunt of a place.” 

He bends to pick the longboard up and gestures at Steve to lead the way. “I’ve been back more times than I can count - I usually come here every second winter now and stay for a few months. My employer has a branch in Sydney so I work there for six to eight weeks and then have a month off, use my vacation days or take some unpaid leave. I’m like an honorary Australian by now, but New York is home.”

He even pronounces it in the endearing _New Yawk_ way Steve secretly loves like crazy.

“I’m from New York too,” Steve says, not even trying to mask how eager he sounds. James seems incredibly nice in that mildly assholish way Steve adores, plus he’s very easy on the eyes and clearly gay as hell, _and_ he lives in the same city as Steve. If anything, Steve should make his interest _extremely clear_ as quickly as possible, before Sam turns up with his stunning gap-toothed smile and general wholesomeness and biceps as big as Steve's.

“Really?” James lights up. “What’re the fucking odds! What are you doing in Brisbane?”

Steve scratches the back of his head. “My friend has one of those travel blogs? She beats people up around the world.”

“No way, _kickingupnuts?_ I follow her, she’s fun.”

“Oh,” Steve says, relieved that he doesn’t have to try to explain Nat’s whole spiel to James. “Yes, she’s something, that’s for sure. We’re going to Sydney and Melbourne after this before Clint and I are flying home, but Sam and Nat are gonna continue to… New Zealand? I think.”

“That’s neat,” James agrees. He gives Steve another long, thoughtful once-over that makes Steve feel hot under his crop top and his dick twitch urgently. “So you’re just on a holiday?”

“Yep. Desperately trying not to die.” _Of untimely boners and sexual yearning,_ he doesn’t add, but it’s a close call.

“Oh buddy,” James says, grinning. “You’re doing fine for now. It’s only gonna get worse from here.”

Unfortunately, he’s right.

Steve, being a gracious host, offers James a drink, and then regrets it immediately when he has to watch James put his lips around the beer bottle to drink. It takes several recitations of Baby Shark in his head to will his interested dick go down, and James, the bastard, keeps glancing up through his lashes like he knows exactly what effect he’s having on Steve.

Steve is more than ready to give up and suggest they go play _hide the eggplant_ in his bedroom, but he called James here for an actual reason, and it would be really mortifying if Sam and Clint turned up and wanted to use the pool while Steve was banging the snake evicter.

“Oh lord, it’s one of _those,”_ James says when they finally make their way to the backyard and the pool, wrinkling his nose at the sight of the snake. Steve would find it adorable, hadn’t his heart rate just shot up to the stratosphere.

Steve’s voice sounds about an octave higher than normally as he squeaks out, “Is it dangerous?”

“Yeah nah,” James says, patting Steve’s bicep consolingly, touch lingering. “It’s a hefty bugger but doesn’t kill you.”

Steve barely bites back the _I think that’s my line_ joke.

James takes a moment to locate the garden hose and fix his hair in the reflection of the barbeque grill lid while Steve gazes at him not unlike he usually gazes at his own bedroom after having been on a vacation for three weeks: finally a chance for some private dick time and a place to nut in peace.

Then James turns and comes back with the hose, his hips swaying a little more than necessary. _He needs to do some squats if he walks like that normally,_ Steve thinks. _Maybe I can check his glutes later. Just from a medical point of view. There might be weaknesses in his supporting muscles._

“All right,” James says brightly. “Watch.”

Then he turns the spigot on, aims the spray at the snake and screams, “FUCK OFF CUNT,” and Steve promptly trips over his own feet.

The snake curls when the spray hits it, surprised and miffed, but slowly it coils itself and starts moving into the bushes behind the pool while James keeps yelling expletives at it, his accent swinging hilariously between New York and Australia. Steve tries to catch his breath, holding onto the pool fence, but it’s really hard when he’s torn between laughing himself to death and fighting the urge to grab James and kiss his wonderful, ridiculous mouth.

“Yeah, you big bastard,” James yells when the snake disappears from sight. “Get stuffed!”

He cuts the water, turns to Steve beaming like the sun, and says, “That was fun,” and Steve’s blurting, “Can I kiss you?” before even realizing the words are coming out of his mouth.

“Yes, God, please,” James says, tosses the hose to the side, grabs the front of Steve’s shirt, and yanks him down. Their mouths smash awkwardly, but then James gets on his tiptoes and tilts his chin, and it turns into an actual kiss that zips straight into Steve’s dick. It gets even better when Steve gets a hand on James’s lower back and another at the back of his neck, and it’s a horny downhill from there: James’s lips slide against his so nicely, wet and tasting like raspberry chapstick, and he makes the most wonderful little noises when Steve kneads the muscles just above the swell of his ass.

“Do you even know what you look like?” James pants when Steve lets him up for air. “Fuck, I wanted to ride you into the sunset the second I laid my eyes on you.”

“Do _you_ know what you look like?” Steve pants back and kisses him again. “I’ve never gotten a boner over roman sandals before.”

“I can leave them on if you want,” James says into Steve’s mouth and does something with his tongue that makes Steve see the gates of Olympus. He inches a hand under Steve’s tank, feeling him up. “As long as we lose everything e--”

His words are lost in Steve’s yelp, when something fast and sudden thunks against his head, trying to snatch his hat. He grabs at the brim and manages to keep the hat, startled and wrong-footed, looking around them wildly for whatever homophobic ghost dared to interrupt his quest to suck James's soul out through his tongue. The yard looks peaceful and empty now that the snake is gone. 

But then the whatever-it-is - probably a small dinosaur if he understands anything about Australia - appears out of nowhere and goes for James’s head. James ducks just in time, and Steve reaches for the rake again, about to whack the little monster out of the sky, but James grabs his wrist and tugs urgently, intercepting his plan.

“Are you fucking mad?” James nearly yells, covering his head with his free arm. “Run!”

Steve abandons the rake and follows him, rushing back up the stairs and under the porch roof, holding onto his hat. When he turns to look, heart pounding with the adrenaline, there’s a big, smug-looking bird sitting on the pool fence. “What the fuck?”

James cards a hand through his hair, huffing out a breath. “Magpies. You don’t wanna fuck with those cunts, they’re as crazy as anything. Swoop, there goes your scalp if you’re not careful. Guess it didn't like the noise.”

“Jesus,” Steve says. “And I thought a snake in the pool was bad.”

James laughs, relieved now that the danger is over. He’s a little breathless, his cheeks flushed and lips kiss-red. “Welcome to Australia, hon,” he says, flirty as anything, and Steve takes it as an invite to press him slowly against the door, crowding him in.

“Oh I feel very welcomed,” he murmurs, sliding his hand down to cup James’s thigh and urge it up. His skin feels really nice; Steve should definitely ask later for some lotion recommendations. “Where were we?”

James hooks his leg around Steve’s, tips the sunhat back from Steve’s face and finally off, getting a good hold of his ears to kiss him again. “Mm,” he says and grinds his crotch against the hard line of Steve’s dick, as Steve palms his pec and squeezes like he’s testing it for ripeness. “I think I was about to take care of another big bastard, but maybe it should be me who gets stuffed this time.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t call my dick a hefty bugger,” Steve says between the kisses. He gets distracted by pawing at James’s ass like a horny kangaroo, but eventually manages to get the door open and them into his bedroom, and then they don’t say much else for a long while.

James leaves the sandals on.

***

“Steve,” Sam says as he wanders out of the back door and puts his beer down on the patio table, eyeing James. “Who’s that, and why is he wearing your kangaroo speedo?”

Steve pushes his sunglasses up to his forehead, reluctantly looking away from James’s tanned, mostly-naked body gliding in the pool. Steve’s been shamelessly ogling for almost fifteen minutes, since they finished basking in the afterglow and James announced that he wanted to swim, and James’s been happily obliging like the absolutely unabashed slutty summer child he is.

Maybe Sam should take a photo of him for Nat’s instagram; James’s ass in Steve’s Australian flag -patterned speedo, especially with the distinctively hand-shaped bruise that’s forming on one of the cheeks, would probably bring in a couple thousand followers more.

“Oh?” Steve says innocently, but the smug _I just got my cock wet_ smile probably ruins his efforts. He’s got hickeys blooming on his collarbones, and James’s number programmed into his phone; he can be smug if he wants to. He takes a sip of his beer and has another good, long look at James's backstroke. “That’s James. He came to handle the snake.”

****

**Author's Note:**

> I make more jokes on twitter as [@badrohmance](https://twitter.com/badrohmance) and less regularly on tumblr as [rohkeutta](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com).


End file.
